Various systems operating within a commercial or residential environment for the purpose of controlling environmental conditions, entertainment devices, or security systems have been around for many years. Controlling and monitoring these systems from remote locations provides significant added value and utility in many cases, but introduces additional challenges and costs. There are several such systems that have been implemented, most notably for purposes such as energy management, security, and activity monitoring. These systems often use dedicated point-to-point communications networks, pager systems, or telephone modem lines. A disadvantage of these systems is the cost of installing and maintaining these communications networks.
More recently some systems have leveraged Internet services already present at the target site, for communicating between a remote site and the target site, but this introduces additional challenges. Most sites, both commercial and residential, will have Internet firewalls in place to protect against unauthorized access to the internal network and systems. Configuring these firewalls to allow for the communications necessary is not always an easy or convenient prospect for a typical homeowner or small-site manager.
Another challenge with previous systems is the cost of installing and maintaining the equipment specific to the system itself. The initial installation may require a physical visit (or “truck-roll”) by a qualified technician. Repairs or upgrades to the physical equipment and upgrades to its functionality provided by its embedded firmware may then require additional visits.
One of the most similar systems to embodiments of the present disclosure was an energy management system developed by Invensys Inc, and named GoodWatts™. It was deployed in several large pilot studies over the period 2003 to April 2007. It used a Linux-based gateway device, and devices that included a thermostat and load-control module which were outfitted with 802.15.4 capable radio units operating in the 900 MHz and 2.4 GHz frequency bands. The system leveraged the Internet to provide two-way communications, but the system had several deficiencies, which embodiments of the present disclosure overcome.
In the GoodWatts™ system, communications between the data center and the gateway located at each remote site were typically initiated from the server side. Therefore, TCP/IP connections needed to be established by the servers to the gateways. To do this the GoodWatts gateway required connection in front of, or on the non-protected side of, the customer's firewall. All site communications had to be routed through the GoodWatts™ gateway, which raised severe concerns for customers regarding functionality and security of their network. Since the GoodWatts gateway was located on the non-protected side of the firewall, it was open to external cyber-security attacks; and since all customer data was routed through the gateway, the potential for damage caused by cyber-security attacks was high.
However, this design choice was taken for the GoodWatts system since establishing the gateway behind the customer's firewall would present additional challenges. These kinds of systems are readily impeded by common firewall restrictions present at, or introduced into, the remote site's LAN. When this occurs, it necessitates special reconfiguration of the LAN by customer service technicians and, in some cases, the introduction of additional modem hardware at the site in order to work around the need to maintain various firewall settings.
The GoodWatts system also lacked a modular firmware architecture such that it could not be readily extended to support additional devices, or to support entirely different functional site-management applications.
The GoodWatts system was neither sufficiently scalable nor economical enough to succeed in the market place.
It is with respect to these and other considerations that the present disclosure has been made.